


The Bickerings Of Love

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Get Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-11
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-20 20:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/589492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One fateful day, Fury orders a team vacation. Or: is it a Meet Cute if you've already, you know, met?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bickerings Of Love

**Author's Note:**

> My humble offerings to the fandom. Un-beta'd, so apologies for any egregious errors. Enjoy!

Years later, when Tony looked back—okay, that was kind of a lie, he tended to remember no more than the last three months at any given time, but he occasionally thought about some of the big things, generally on the day after the anniversary when someone was shouting about it, but anyway—he realized that probably the most important thing to ever happen to the Avengers was The Vacation.

 

\--

 

The Avengers were stuck in post-fight briefing again, for the second time in twenty-four hours and the eighth time all week. Clint was draped out across his portion of the conference table in the Helicarrier, right hand palm up with an icepack strapped to his forearm, which was bruised and battered after the arm guard was ripped off. Nat looked perfectly normal except for a burgeoning black eye, Thor was so slouched in his chair that this chest practically hid his face, and Bruce was wearing little else but a robe and nursing a coffee to overcome the post-Hulk hangover. Tony’s eye hovered on Steve, who was looking mildly hang-dog but as attentive as usual to Hill’s endless lecture, before passing to the door as Fury swept in and promptly commandeered the floor.

 

“You’ve had a hell of a week, team,” he started brusquely, and stopped as Clint started to laugh.

 

“Hell of a _week_? It’s been a hell of a week for so long that I think we can be upgraded to having a hell of a lifestyle.” Various forms of agreement echoed around the table, and Hill and Fury exchanged a glance.

 

“We’ve noticed, Hawkeye. And not just us—Professor Xavier stopped by to mention that the X-Men would be more than willing to pick up the slack if you all went missing for a week or two. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind having you out of my hair—“ his eye narrowed dangerously as Tony opened his mouth to make a crack about hair, lack of, before closing it—“so I’m ordering some R and R. Somewhere far away, but preferably still on the continent.”

 

Thor straightened enough to flop forward and rest his crossed arms on the table near Mjolnir. “My darling Jane has spoken to me of the glorious state of Washington. I long to see the natural beauty of Midgard; perhaps we shall travel there?”

 

Fury shrugged. “Fine by me. I’d suggest leaving as soon as possible, before something else crops up. Stark, I except you’ll feel generous enough towards your teammates that lending funding for this venture will be of no consequence.” He aimed a sharktooth grin at Tony, who grumbled acquiescence. “See you in a week, team. I don’t want to hear a word about you until then.” The undertone of  _behave, boys and girls_  rang through the room as he and Hill swept out with their usual attention to drama.

 

\--

 

Tony stared at the mess across his bed, threw his hands up, and told Jarvis to call Pepper, it was a total emergency, come quick.  “Fucking vacation, load of bullshit,” he grumbled, throwing himself petulantly across the bed. “Since when is he allowed to run my life? Only Pep’s allowed to do that.” Tony knew  if he tried to weasel out of it, Natasha would be sent after him, and it still kind of sucked when she beat him up and dragged him back like some crazy warrior princess out husband-hunting who found a substandard specimen that someone else might want and maybe his imagination was a little crazy, especially considering the fact that Nat was secretly probably his favorite just because she made Pepper happy even if she did terrify the ever-loving shit out of him.

 

He spent the next fifteen minutes musing on the glorious chaos that the Avengers would cause if he booked them domestic flights to Washington, starting with the stunned looks of TSA agents as Nat divested herself of the assortment of knives, guns, garrotes, and other toys she carried on a daily basis. Thor would undoubtedly challenge someone to battle after they attempted to take Mjolnir, Steve would try and intervene, and Tony would likely laugh himself sick.

 

The door slammed open, and Tony twitched as the ferocious clicking of a pissed-off Pepper rapidly advanced towards him. “Do you know what I was doing when Jarvis called,” she asked in her I’m-being-deliberately-calm-because-your-death-would-do-terrible-things-to-the-stocks voice.

 

“Nothing important?” Tony asked hopefully, face still mashed into the bed.

 

“Oh, hardly. Just a meeting with the board of directors,” she said, and Tony promptly erased that from his mind because technically he was supposed to be there too and he definitely didn’t want the minutes. He flipped over with a coquettish smile and received an exceedingly unimpressed raised eyebrow in return.

 

“Did you learn that from Nat? You totally learned that from Nat. You two need to stop being around each other all the time, next thing you know you’ll put your hair in a ponytail using a garrote too and then I’ll have to be even more afraid for my life than I already am.”

 

Pepper sighed, reluctantly smiling, and dropped a sheaf of papers next to Tony on the bed. “Sign those. I’ll get your suitcase packed.”

 

“Pepper, you are a goddess among women, seriously, good thing I already made you my CEO otherwise I’d have to do it again—“ he was cut off by a pair of pants thrown in his face, but that probably was a victory. She emerged from the walk-in closet a few moments later, an impossibly neat stack of pants and shirts in her arms.

 

“Why are you even doing this?” she asked his bowed head, upturning the haphazardly filled suitcase before depositing her choices. “I’m assuming Fury threatened you, because vacationing out in Washington is so not your M.O. But you’re not even arguing.”

 

Tony looked up at her, pen pointing accusingly. “Have you ever _met_ Fury? He’s like a baby with candy when it comes to Steve, and I know this is all a ploy to make His Captainness happy. I’m pretty badass, but I don’t know if I could take Fury’s…well, fury if I made Steve actually sad. And I’ve been getting more than enough puppy eyes from that front for skipping out on all the other team bonding.” He paused, pen dropping as a thought occurred, and Pepper turned to delve once more into the closet. “Pep, this is going to be so awkward,” he said, horrified.

 

 She turned over her shoulder, smiling. “Oh Tony,” she said. “I know.” And she laughed.

 

\--

 

Thor was bounding around, investigating the area around their temporary housing like a golden retriever exploring new and exciting territory, complete with occasional pauses to sniff the air. He was clearly pleased by his surroundings, and as Tony surveyed them himself, he had to grudgingly agree. He had— _acquired—_ this cabin in the Olympic National Park many years ago but had never used it himself before, although he knew Pepper often escaped to here. Generally when he was on a bender.

 

As if the very thought of Pepper had summoned her, Natasha appeared beside Tony, the slightest of smiles on her face. “It really is beautiful, you know,” she said, slanting her eyes toward Tony, a note of challenge in her voice.

 

He shrugged. “It’s not so bad,” he said, and was interrupted by the sight of Thor giving a bellow and throwing himself up a tree trunk, clinging and climbing like a squirrel to reach the lowest branches. “Now there’s a sight I never thought I’d see,” Tony said with astonished admiration in his voice.

 

Natasha turned to face him, arms crossed. “I could’ve told you he loves climbing trees,” she said, canting a hip and raising a brow. “But the difference between you and I—at least, one of the many differences—is that I take the time to get to know my team members. I find it generally pays to know someone well enough to be able to predict when they will stand and when they’ll run.” She turned to take a bag off Clint, who was predictably unloading the food, and Tony was left with the echo of what she didn’t say. _Are you a team player, or not?_ And, maybe even worse, _we’re a team_ without _you._

 

 

Within a few hours, the team had set up the ridiculously spacious cabin—each with their own room—and were scattered in the field and forest about it. Thor was lounging in a Adirondack chair placed out in the sun, a bottle of Crush (his one true love after Jane and poptarts) to his left, and a luridly colored paperback the object of his focus. Nat stretched out on the lush grass beside him, a forbidding looking tome in Russian her literary choice du jour. Clint sat cross-legged near her and Thor’s feet, whittling down a large bendy branch, mostly likely into a bow, the obsessed little bastard.

 

Tony was bored. Bored bored bored. He flopped down in the empty chair next to Thor, leaning to squint at the cover of the book.

 

“Whatcha got there, buddy?” asked Tony, and Thor looked up to toss Tony a bright grin.

 

“A magnificent tale of love and betrayal!” replied Thor, showing Tony the cover. “The lady Darcy has lent me her treasured telling of it. Look, upon the front! A visage so similar to my own, it is an honor!” He adopted the slightly farsighted expression of Fabio on the cover as he held it near his face, clearly for better comparison, and Tony struggled not to laugh.

 

“It’s not surprise, you’re pretty hot stuff. Are you enjoying it so far?”

 

“Oh, indeed! The tales of romance are revered and often told in the halls of Asgard, as true love is a matter of far greater fortune than even the grandest of battles! The hero Mary in this tale is a wise woman, to understand the value of love, and at such a young age.” Tony was sure, absolutely sure, he heard Natasha laugh at that, but a glance in her direction yielded her normal creepy blank expression as she flipped a page. Clint was unabashedly smirking, but knew better than to laugh, as the last time that he’d laughed at Thor nearly earned him a thorough introduction between his face and Mjolnir.

 

“Just don’t let Jane fine out you’re reading that, she’ll have kittens,” Tony cautioned Thor, rolling onto his feet and wandering off, already bored with team-bonding-small-talk-bullshit, although he didn’t walk away so quickly that he missed Thor’s puzzled “Kittens? Women give birth to kittens here? How strange.”

 

\--

 

“Day 3 of vacation,” Tony announced, turning dramatically with arms upraised, surveying the empty cabin. “And I have met my downfall.” He would give just about anything—probably his left arm, definitely an old arc reactor—to hear Jarvis reply. He had left a small project for the AI, and the interaction system was turned off so the processing power could be devoted to simulations. The rest of his tech was unaffected, and was glorious and beautiful like usual, but his manic cycle of drafting was far less calming without Jarvis to get shirty with him.

 

Clint walked in, took one look at Tony, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Go take a walk, Stark,” he said. “You look like a fuckin’ zombie. There’s a path down to the river, maybe a swim will help shrink some things.”

 

“Har har,” said Tony, “what is this, amateur hour?” He went out anyway, because Clint could be an asshole but he was an astute one, and he hadn’t slept in two days and had so little to keep him entertained that he would probably jump off a cliff for shits and giggles.

 

Tony was not a nature person but the path to the river was smooth and easy to walk and even he had to admit the forest was haunting, mossy drapes splitting the setting sun into grasping fingers that pawed through the undergrowth, and wasn’t that just a nice bit of poetry. The trees opened up onto a glacial river and Tony picked down the sloped bank, standing on the cusp and staring into the rushing water in an attempt to find a state of mind not best described by “batshit crazy.” He glanced up and down the river and spotted Steve about 100 yards upriver, elbows propped on knees in a classic Steve pose and, grumbling and cursing, Tony tottered over the rough bank to Steve, sliding and tripping over the spray-slicked rocks.

 

Tony carefully leveled himself down onto a rock next to Steve—damn sharp things, Steve must have an ass of steel, okay, the entire free world knew Steve had an ass of steel but Tony hadn’t really believed that one until now—and sighed.

 

Steve turned his head slightly, eyes peering out from under his bangs, sweaty and uncoiffed, as he shifted his feet that were dunked in the river. “What do you want, Tony,” he asked, voice inflectionless and dull in a creepy not-Steve way.

 

Tony took a moment to look at Steve— _really_ look, as he rarely bothered to do—and couldn’t help a surprised exclamation of “You look like shit!” And for Steve, he did. Bags under his eyes, slumped posture (slightly hidden by the thoughtful-and-burdened-but-still-hopeful-commander pose) and total lack of 1940’s vim and vigor. “No, seriously. You’re usually Mr. Sociable. What have you been doing, trying to find every motherless fawn or fallen baby bird and rescue it?”

 

Steve’s face tightened, and he spoke reluctantly. “I’m not Mr. Sociable. Not like you, anyway.”

 

“Are you kidding? You’re not sociable like me because I hate people. You actually like them, _care_ about them. I just want them to buy my newest Stark phone so I can fund my superhero habit.”

 

Steve finally turned to face Tony fully, looking downtrodden instead of mildly engaged in their usual verbal sparring. “Tony- you-“ he groped for words helplessly, hands fluttering, drawing his confusion on the air. “The entire world knows your name, you have women literally throwing themselves at you, you made yourself a suit of battle armor and the cleanest energy source ever while stuck in a cave full of terrorists! Yes, I’m nothing like you.”

 

Tony leaned in, a hand darting out to pull Steve’s eyelid back to peer at the pupil, dislike of touching people be damned. “Hello? Who’s in there? Because it’s clearly not Steve Rogers!” He leaned back, reclaiming his hand and missing the sudden flicker of emotion across Steve’s face. “You’re like, the epitome of humanity. I’m sure you know what Hulk’s favorite thing to smash is or Bruce’s favorite yoghurt flavor. Last time I checked, my behavior was not your benchmark of personal growth and social skills. Even I will admit I’m five years old sometimes.” Tony’s mouth kept running, God, this is why he never turned Jarvis off anymore, it always ended so embarrassingly when he talked to actual people. At least, it would be embarrassing if he still had a sense of shame, which was mysteriously absent except in the presence of Steve, who was capable of stirring up all sorts of interesting emotions in Tony.

 

“You are the champion of every sad big-eyed animal on the face of the planet. Every red-blooded woman and gay man loves you, and seriously, even most of the straight guys and lesbians want to jump you. If Jane hadn’t gotten to Thor first, he would’ve been after you like you were made of pop tarts, although his judgment is suspect, partly because of the pop tarts and partly because he thinks Fabio’s pretty just because of the hair.” Tony paused for a breath. “And I’m going to stop talking now, except for this. Stop being a dumbass. I don’t know why in hell you’d want more than one of me on the team.  I’m sure the rest of the Avengers as well as the entirety of SHIELD would be happy to list you the many ways that you’re not me and how vastly superior that makes you. Also, if you come back damaged at all, Fury will fuck my shit up, so just remember that.” Tony was angry, so angry, and he didn’t understand why. He viciously levered himself up, ignoring Steve’s bewildered and hesitant expression, and his left foot slid across a surprisingly slippery rock—he flailed, saw Steve reaching for him—

 

 

\--

 

“Let this be a lesson to all dumbass billionaire playboys, that leather soled custom Italian shoes are not for climbing around on rocks,” Natasha said ominously, scary expression softened by the fact that she had just tucked his blanket in tight around him after Clint finished mopping up Tony’s scrapes with another share of surprising gentleness.

 

“You’re just mad because you want shoes like these,” Tony told her, words broken by his chattering teeth. He’d been carried a good half mile down the freezing cold river before Hulk barged out of the forest and scooped him up, Steve anxiously watching, and that set alarm bells off in Tony’s head even as he realized that he was going to be horribly sick, thanks to his exhaustion and the physical shock. Steve was never the type to wait around and let somebody else do the hard work. Yeah, Tony had gotten pretty badly scraped up by the rocks he slid across on the way in, but Steve never cared about that, nor about the chill of the water. Even if the serum didn’t protect him, Steve still wouldn’t care, wouldn’t hesitate because of that and yet today he hunted down Hulk rather than fish Tony out himself.

 

Now, Tony was reclining in the room he’d claimed, surrounded by hovering and mildly amused superheroes. Normally he’d love the attention, or at least tolerate it, but he was tired and cold and knew he was going to spend at least the next few days sleeping and leaking mucus. “Out, out you peons,” he said, theatrically leaning back into his pillows and closing his eyes. “I have wearied of your love and adoration.”

 

Five minutes later, Tony was nearly asleep when he heard the door open and click close, and he tensed, keeping his eyes closed as he calculated trajectories out of the room and just how far he could throw his exhausted body. The whisper of clothes was the only clue that someone had actually entered, and then the sound of a chair settling and a small sigh. Tony slit an eye open,  caught the gleam of gold hair, and relaxed, opening his eyes all the way.

 

Steve sat in the corner chair, legs stretched out and head thrown back. “I’m sorry I didn’t go in after you,” he offered, voice quiet and hesitant. “When I saw you slip…all I could see was Bucky, falling.”

 

Tony struggled to come up with a response and, in lieu of actual words, tried to radiate compassion and this-is-touching-but-please-shut-the-hell-up-soon-I’m-tired.

 

“I—I don’t know who I am anymore,” Steve continued, tension winding up through his body, eyes squished shut as if it could block out 2012 if he tried hard enough. “Any more, all there ever is time for is Captain America. All my friends are—are old or dead, can’t or won’t see me.  I never got to come home from the war… I can’t escape the memories. I feel like I don’t understand so much of how people live now, but there’s nobody I can ask about it. I try and be a good team leader but that’s become everything in my life and I _hate it_.” He spat the last two words, as if he didn’t even want to taste them on his lips.

 

Tony could see his point; after all, to him, Steve was mostly a finely muscled and blue clad ass shouting ineffectual orders at him and badgering him to go to team events. And the Avengers lifestyle (“it’s like crack for people too stupid to just buy drugs,” as Clint put it) wasn’t exactly conducive to overcoming the culture shock and PTSD double whammy. Tony had no doubts that Steve had a SHIELD mandated therapist—hell, he did too, but they mostly just stared at each other, and he doubted Steve would do that—but  there’s only so much that can be done to speed up the process, sometimes.

 

Steve opened his eyes, catching Tony’s and wow, what was that feeling, he doesn’t like feelings, it’s like people touching him but _worse_ , and then Steve was gone and Tony fell into a stupor.

 

\--

 

The next few days were an exercise in humiliation for Tony and entertainment for everyone else.   He was “allowed” to sleep in his own bed at night, but every morning he was carried out by a gleeful Thor and propped up in a lounge cushioned and blanketed for him. He mostly dozen in the sun, at least one team member on hand at all times (oddly, never Steve) but Thor had lent him “Heart of Passion” so he had some light reading when awake. Some parts of him wanted to get work done, and the rest of him wanted to be a whiny kid with narcolepsy, so he just bothered about sleeping and eating most of the time.

 

For today, though, he was watching Nat and Hulk play pat-a-cake. Hulk hunched over her, a scowl of concentration on his face as he lightly tapped Nat’s hands. Tony approved; “gentle” was a concept they’d been working on with Hulk and apparently it was starting to stick. He was of the opinion that the fresh air agreed with Hulk, although realistically few things were stupid enough to disagree with anything that could leap a mile in a bound and smash your face in so thoroughly that you could kiss your own ass.

 

Days were easy, aside from the occasional teasing and fussing. Nights, on the other hand…. Tony wasn’t sure what to make of it. The three nights after he fell in, Steve came to his room. They didn’t talk, but not in an awkward way which was sort of a novel experience, and Tony supposed he was being a metaphysical teddy bear for Steve, which he didn’t mind as long as he was allowed to sleep. Today, though, was the last day of vacation and when Steve creeped in that night, he had a determined look on his face. Tony winced on the inside—there was clearly a Conversation heading towards him. Steve glanced at his usual chair, hesitated, and then headed for the bed, perching on the edge with a hand resting perilously close to Tony’s thighs.

 

“Tony,” Steve began, and Tony couldn’t help himself, he really couldn’t, he groaned and Steve’s expression switched to mild alarm. “Are you alright?” He reached for Tony’s forehead and Tony suffered the touch, having been scolded too many times already this week for trying to avoid it, which never ends well for him when some form of superhero is doing the scolding.

 

“I’m _fine_ ,” he said irritably, ignoring the sensation of Steve’s hand. “I’m just allergic to people saying my name in that tone of voice. It’s generally followed by a statement that tries—and, mind you, utterly fails—to disturb my worldview.”

 

Steve leaned back with a sigh of his own. “Tony,” he started again, “whatever you may think of the idea, I— _we_ —would really like you around the team more.” He paused, and looked at Tony, clearly waiting for an answer and equally as clearly expecting the worst, and Tony’s treacherous mouth went ahead and filled the silence without consulting his brain first.

 

“I may have a mansion on Fifth that Pep keeps telling me to volunteer for a headquarters for the team, so we can be off-duty together without having to be in SHIELD quarters.”

 

“Tony, that would be wonderful!” Steve said with embarrassing sincerity, beaming as Tony cursed himself blue on the inside of his head.

 

\--

 

“It’s like freshman move in day all over again,” griped Tony, who had to immediately dodge Thor carrying an enormous… paisley chaise lounge? Alright, he was seriously going to cut Thor off from the romance novels, that was just an affront to mankind and everyone’s dignity.

 

Clint popped around the corner from the ancient smoking room, wearing one of the guest smoking jackets that had been kept by the housekeepers for some godawful reason. “Does that mean we get to haze your previously-15-year-old-freshman ass?” He waved an unlit pipe in a way he probably thought was imperious and intoned, “Fetch me a beautiful babe, pledge.” Nat, with her impeccable sense of timing, walked past Clint and he stuck the pipe in his mouth and wiggled his eyebrows outrageously. “Hey, babe.”

 

“Clint Barton, I will sue the pants off you,” said Pepper, sashaying prettily across the foyer to go pick up another load of Natasha’s mysterious black boxes. Clint bowed deeply and theatrically as she passed, murmuring “Yes, Miss Pepper.” When he straightened, Tony mouthed at him “she will own you,” before howling as Nat tromped on his foot. Any further witty repartee was cut off by an almighty crash from upstairs, probably Thor dropkicking something through a few walls, and Tony threw up his hands and fled down to this lab in the basement.

 

On the whole, though, he had to admit that living with the team wasn’t the end of the world. He could easily hide when he didn’t want bothered and they were great entertainment when he did. Of course, SHIELD agents wandered through on a regular basis, but Jarvis had standing orders to be an obnoxious little twit and Clint was teaching Tony the ways of scaring the shit out of them, which was way too fun to be legal, like all the fine things in life.

 

“Actually,” Clint had told him once when they were perched in an access tube in the ceiling, watching Sitwell stand awkwardly in the foyer as Thor enthusiastically explained to him some kind of fertility ritual on Asgard with increasingly graphic descriptions, “Fury did make it illegal to cause undue stress to any armed agent by hiding it in some bill about corn regulations, but it doesn’t work so well when we can just say we were keeping in practice and they can’t technically disprove it.” And then he fired a warning shot across Sitwell’s nose before they repelled down out of the trap door, screaming.

 

After that, SHIELD always sent Coulson, because at least he thought they were funny, even if he never let it show.

 

The only real issue was Steve. Tony had no idea what in hell he was supposed to do about any of it. He had caught Steve on several occasions staring very intently at him, and while Tony was never one to turn down appreciative attention, he wasn’t so sure about the appreciation. The whole gay issue was a bit of a gray zone anyway, since most people discouraged him from quizzing national icons about their sexual life, and since most people included Fury and Coulson, he actually kept away from the topic. Also, he wasn’t best pleased by the idea of being punched by said national icon without at the very least the protection of his armor. In the meantime, he dealt with it as all problems; ignore it until Pepper told him to do something about it.

 

\--

 

Of course, the peace and quiet surrounding the move-in had to break sooner or later, and break it did. Some twerp calling himself Deep Freeze, what was he, fighting on behalf of chest freezers everywhere, talk about tacky, decided to go rampaging through the Bronx and of course everyone else was busy. Between the weird freeze ray and several flunkies that Tony was 99% sure were _literal_ wrecking balls, the villain had done some serious damage to the team and, more importantly, to the armor.

 

Tony landed unsteadily in the basement lab in the mansion and stomped over to the heavy-duty breakdown unit. As badass as the walk-along breakdown on the top of Stark Tower was, there was no way that it could pry the mangled armor off his body without seriously damaging something, and Tony wanted the armor _off_ and all limbs attached, please. He started with the vambraces,  wincing at the shriek and snap of tortured steel and the gentle, continuous snowfall of the paint and titanium-nitride flaking off. Tony grimaced—he assumed the separation was due to differing coefficients of thermal expansion, but he’d have to get a metallurgist to go back over the whole mess with him to see if there was another issue besides having the shit frozen out of it. This suit was definitely a loss, plus the goldish powder all across the floor looked far more like an embarrassing crafting accident than awesome engineering at work.

 

“Dummy,” Tony called, struggling to find an opening to fit the pry mechanism into a seriously smashed greave, “where are you, what the hell, are you romancing the fire extinguisher again? Because I need a cleanup in Isle Me right now, this is absurd, you’d think I was a poledancer with all this glitter around. And you know I only do that for people I like.”

 

Dummy trundled around a corner, whistling happily, and nodded its arm as it went to fetch its shop vac attachment.

 

“Why Tony, I didn’t know you were that kind of woman,” said an amused voice from around the same corner, followed by a mostly uniformless Steve, and Tony jabbed himself in the thigh with half a ton of precision machinery and yelped.

 

“What the hell! Excuse me, do I go parading through your gym all the time when you’re busy? This is my _workshop_! It’s sacred!”

 

“Yes, Tony, you do,” Steve said patiently. “Generally with Bruce in tow, talking about how science will conquer the world. Remember last Tuesday?”

 

“How could I forget? I was nearly decapitated by a punching bag. That’s not really an everyday occurrence in my line of work. Not even super villains use gym equipment as casual ballistics.”

 

“Does that mean you’ve learned your lesson?”

 

Tony squinted up at him as the damn greave finally gave up the ghost and started groaning open, cracking in long lines and flaking off more tinitride. “Are you even paying attention to who you’re talking to? Tony Stark? Does the name and mannerisms ring a bell?” He wriggled out of the greave and kicked it across the workshop, throwing Steve a suspicious look as he started in on the left pauldron, which was so deformed it had covered half the gorget on that side as well. “But really, what the hell are you doing down here? Shouldn’t you be like, smiling and reassuring the nation that we aren’t going to hit a new ice age?”

 

“Fury decided it was better to leave that to the official SHIELD liaison.” Any further comments were drowned out as Dummy started the shop vac and industriously bustled around. Tony swore and shouted a lot, incomprehensible over the noise, until Dummy shut the vac off and hung its arm, nudging at Steve.

 

“Aww, poor little guy, you were just trying to help, weren’t you,” Steve said to Dummy as Tony stared, jaw dropping. Steve patted Dummy’s arm as the robot perked up, bobbing and whistling.

 

“You traitor!” Tony exclaimed, throwing a sliver of metal at Dummy. “See if I get you any more upgrades if you don’t love me best! Jarvis can have all of your new toys, and the fire extinguisher, for that matter.”

 

“I believe Captain Rogers’s presence would be preferable to the fire extinguisher in any case, sir,” Jarvis chimed in, and Tony gaped at the ceiling in lieu of any better target.

 

“You, too? What is the world coming to? I’ll throw you all out, you ungrateful bastards, make you talk to Deep Blue all the time, see what life would be like as a supercomputer and then maybe you’ll be properly thankful for me!” There was an astounding _clang_ as the pauldron ripped off under Tony’s suddenly enraged attack, and Steve turned to him, frowning.

 

“I’m sure they still like you perfectly fine, Tony,” he scolded, splitting his attention between two robots now that Butterfingers had arrived, “I think they’re just lonely because you don’t let anyone down here.”

 

“Yeah, speaking of, why the hell are you down here? Do you need something? Your own AI maybe, so you’ll stop stealing mine?”

 

“I’m not trying to steal him,” said Steve, clearly astounded, “I just—well, I—“

 

“Oh come on, out with it, Cap, I know you want something from me. Everybody does,” he added, shedding the less-damaged sections of his armor quickly. “Better armor? Money? A jet?” Okay, so maybe he was still a little bitter over Rhodey only visiting long enough for upgrades last week.

 

“Tony,” Steve said, his face a thundercloud, and then Pepper ricocheted around the corner, speaking alarmingly fast about something-quality-control and then stopping abruptly as she finally looked up and noticed the two glowering at each other.

 

“Actually,” she said, edging back around the corner, “never mind, I’ll be upstairs, but seriously this is very big and I need this resolved in say, a half hour, so if you could maybe  hurry this up a bit, but no pressure—“

 

“No, Pep, it’s fine,” Tony said, turning to her and smiling hugely. “We can talk now! Business is always important to me.” Steve huffed and disappeared, the lab door hissing shut behind him and Tony relaxed, to Pepper’s visible astonishment.

 

“Well?” she asked, canting her hip against a desk. “Aren’t you going to go and do something about that?”

 

“About what, Pep?” he asked back, annoyed, collapsing into his favorite rolley chair now that all the armor was off.

 

“What do you mean, about what? You and Steve having a fight like that, you’re just going to let him walk away?”

 

Tony raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh…yes? Is there any compelling reason why I shouldn’t? He’s just my team leader, I can avoid him all I want, no big deal.”

 

“Just your—“ Pepper sighed, flattening a hand to her face. “Tony, you are such an utter imbecile some days—“

 

“I resent that! And I’m tired of fighting with people today, it got old with the freeze ray and the human wrecking balls! Just tell me what the hell is wrong and we’ll all move on.”

 

“Absolutely not! You have to figure it out yourself, or else it doesn’t mean anything, why don’t you ever understand that!” She turned on her heel, and Tony watched her go, baffled.

 

“I meant about the quality control!” he bellowed after her back.

 

\--

 

Tony didn’t see Steve after the fight until their next mission. They were playing backup to the Fantastic Four, who were unsurprisingly doing battle with Dr. Doom. All the Avengers had to worry about was the perimeter and clean up—any flunkies that tried to escape got nailed by vengeful boredom, as far a Tony was concerned. He was perched on a windowsill five stories up, examining the external finger joins with an occasional pause to repulsor something.

 

Cap was on swing patrol, doing a loop of the perimeter and checking in on the other Avengers on their stations, and was due by Tony’s post in 30 seconds, give or take two minutes. Twenty-eight seconds later, Cap jogged out of a sidestreet two blocks up from Tony’s position, and Tony idly watched him approach with what was probably a creeperish amount of zoom on the suit’s external camera. Tony still found it impossible to resist the siren song of Steve in the suit—it was entirely too many of his teenage wet dreams come to beautiful, muscular life.

 

“Iron Man,” said Steve over the comms as he arrived below Tony’s perch, sounding entirely too unruffled for having just run a four minute mile, “anything to report?”

 

“Complete and utter boredom, Your Capness,” replied Tony, unconsciously shifting and posing. “Remind me again why we can’t join the fun part of this fight?”

 

Cap paused and Tony switched them to a private channel, a distinct _click_ signaling the change. “Because Mr. Fantastic is pissy enough with you over that whole patent issue. Also, it’s bad form to barge in on somebody’s arch-nemesis and kick ass better than they can.”

 

Tony laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a while. “Sometimes it’s hard being the best,” he teased back, lighting his boots and landing down on street level so they could talk off the comm. “And yet, somehow we survive.”

 

Cap snorted, eyes sparkling, and with no other indications his right arm snapped out to throw his shield, decapitating an escaping henchman smoothly. The shield ricocheted back and Cap caught it with a somewhat uncharacteristic smirk.

 

Tony felt his face heat, opened his mouth to say something witty and it definitely wasn’t “you sure know how to handle your weapon,” pinky promise, when he spotted an alarm on the HUD and switched back to the general frequency in time to hear a hell of a lot of shouting. Cap’s face twisted into a rueful smile, and Tony offered him an arm. “Shall we go kick ass?”

 

Cap grabbed his arm, stepping onto the boot of the suit and wrapping an arm around Tony’s shoulders for stability. Tony took off as Hawkeye screamed “EAT POINT MOTHERFUCKER” and Natasha returned “WATCH YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE, ASSHOLE” and then, barely loud enough to overcome the noise of the wind, Tony was sure he heard Cap say “We shall!”

 

That night was the weekly family dinner and movie night, which had been instituted because apparently nobody could resist Clint’s pout and he was kinda freaky about team bonding, even more so than Steve. It was a hit with everyone, because who doesn’t like food and movies, although Thor loved it best because he could eat himself sick _and_ get his hair done by Natasha. It was Bruce’s turn to decide on the arrangements, so they had some fantastic Indian food for dinner and were finally settling down in the movie room. Bruce brandished the case for _Princess Bride_ , and nobody was surprised because Bruce was a sucker for the eighties and pretty much everyone else was a sucker for the romance.

 

Tony was deeply suspicious about the events of the past few weeks. He flopped down onto the couch next to Steve, watching out of the corner of his eye for a reaction and—Steve stiffened? Tony frowned to himself—they were perfectly fine and witty and dare he say _flirty_ during the rest of the battle, so why—oh. Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no. Damn Steve and his damn stupid idea that they were all actually two personalities, normal and superhero, and seriously, dissociative identity disorder was no joking matter.

 

He slouched further into the couch, mentally grumbling and conniving. He’d come up with the best seduction ever, of course he would, he could pull it off even during the movie and it would be so perfect and subtle that no one else would notice….

 

Tony snorted awake, jerking as he tried to blink focus back into his eyes. Where was he? Why the hell had he fallen asleep on his back? He _never_ slept on his back, always made him snore atrociously and then wake himself up, exhibit one, thirty seconds ago. Finally his eyes cleared enough to register a face and blond hair and ooooooh shit his head was in Steve’s lap. Tony attempted to voice that sentiment, which emerged as “ahnshaght,” so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Uh…hi?”

 

“Hi,” said Steve back, and Tony’s brain finally booted enough to register emotions, okay, goofy smile, happy eyes, systems are go for launch, let the dick do the talking, chief.

 

“Come here often?” Tony tried, and Steve laughed, giving Tony the time to glance around the room to confirm they were alone.

 

“Come on, Tony, we should get you to bed,” Steve said, and Tony _definitely_ sat up and begged on the inside. “You’ve hardly been sleeping, that’s very unhealthy.” Oh. Well then. In that case….

 

Tony flipped onto his side, squashing his face into Steve’s stomach—carefully avoiding lower regions—and wrapping his arms around one of Steve’s frankly enormous biceps. He mumbled into Steve’s stomach, just strings of random words, grinning as he felt the muscles jump and tense.

 

“Hey now,” scolded Steve, sounding  a little bit breathless, “what have I said about behaving?”

 

Tony ignored him—what kind of a person talked to him about _behaving_ , plus Steve’s tone was absolutely not saying “stop”—and squeaked in surprise as Steve’s trapped hand tickled his stomach. Tony shot backwards off the couch, Steve laughing uproariously, and Tony poked his nose over the edge of the cushions. “That wasn’t very nice, you know,” Tony informed Steve snottily. Steve kept laughing, though, so Tony braced himself against the couch and grabbed Steve’s arm, tugging until Steve conceded and tumbled down onto the floor. Very conveniently, he landed on top of Tony, forearms braced against the floor, hands near Tony’s head.

 

Steve froze, eyes wide and pupils beginning to blow. Tony locked eyes with Steve, moving slowly, breathing shallowly, and gently placed his hands on Steve’s sides. A flicker of emotions passed over Steve’s face and then he exhaled in a great and shaky sigh, dropping his head and nearly braining Tony in the process. Tony lifted a hand and placed it on the side of Steve’s face, angling it so he could see the other’s eyes again. “Hey,” he said softly, “if this isn’t okay, you have the right to tell me to fuck off, you know.”

 

Steve mashed his eyes shut, tilting his face into Tony’s hand. “No, it’s—not that—“

 

Tony rubbed a thumb across Steve’s cheekbone, forcing himself to sit still and shut the hell up for a few minutes.

 

Steve finally spoke again, eyes still closed. “I do want this,” he said quietly. “This is the first thing I’ve done for _me_ since I came to the future.” He opened his eyes, staring into Tony’s searching for something. “Don’t you see? Everything else since, it’s been for other people, but now I want something, I want this, I want _us_ ,  but…I don’t know how…”

 

“How to be selfish?” Tony replied, giddy. “Don’t worry gorgeous, I’m an expert. I’m sure I can teach even you.”

 

“Well,” said Steve, blushing terribly but still holding Tony’s gaze, “yeah, and…” He cleared his throat, looking so painfully embarrassed Tony couldn’t help himself, slid his hand around to Steve’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss.

 

Steve was hesitant, at first, until Tony gently nipped at his lower lip and then wow, okay, Steve sure as hell wasn’t a cunning linguist but boy could he use that tongue. Eventually, though, Tony’s head started exploding more from lack of oxygen than from Steve kisses and he broke away, panting to catch his breath as Steve pouted down at him.

 

“Let’s move this somewhere more convenient. Not that I don’t like this floor, it’s a nice floor, but there are better places to be romping.” Tony grinned up at Steve, still not really sure that this was actually for real happening and maybe it was time to do a reality check with Jarvis, the whole team remembered the time Tony strobed off in a meeting and thought he was in the Caribbean with a very naked Steve feeling him grapes although apparently that was all the concussion talking—

 

And then they were groping their way down the hallway, and it definitely wasn’t the walls getting groped, so Tony dazedly admitted a high probability of reality and went with it.

 

\--

 

Yeah, okay, so maybe the team didn’t actually get a huge benefit out of The Vacation, although Tony still holds forth that Hulk learning “gentle” was a major step forward for “a wider community acceptance of everyone’s favorite giant green rage monster,” end quote. They just enjoyed the subsequent yearly vacations with a minimum of “oh, god, you two, not in public!” and a variety of renditions of “Tony and Ste-eve, sitting in a tree!” from Clint, who took vicious pleasure in inventing disgustingly embarrassing rhymes and then sending them to Fury, who unsurprisingly was not amused. (Yet somehow, at the bottom of every inter-SHIELD memo during Vacation Week was written Clint’s best masterpiece of the day. Coulson has absolutely no idea what anyone is talking about regarding that matter.)

 

The rest of the team may not have benefitted hugely—but they all agreed that a Meet Cute was totally critical for superhero love and therefore it was a celebrated holiday by all, the weird romanticizing freaks. Tony protested every year that it wasn’t a Meet Cute if they had, you know, met each other before, but it was mostly for show since it got him Steve kisses every time, which frankly were pretty much his goal in life, even before be-an-awesome-superhero. Well, Steve kisses in addition to other parts of Steve. Which may have been a fact that he just verbalized, oops, and now he’s getting the death glare and embarrassed blush combo—

 

“Tony, shut up.”

“Shutting up, dearest.”


End file.
